Wednesday, August 21, 2013

On August 26, 2013 please call and/or email the Honduran Supreme Court and Honduran Government to urge them to annul Chavelo’s sentence and free him immediately! Sample scripts and info for calling and emailing are below. Please let Greg (greg_mccain@yahoo.com) or Brigitte (Brigitte@soaw.org) know if you take action. Thank you!

We are writing to you from the United States to express our deep concern over the lack of justice in the case of Jose Isabel Morales Lopez.

The four year delay between his detention and sentencing is a clear violation of the Penal Code of Honduras which requires a sentence within two years. Also, neither Chavelo or his lawyers were informed of the sentencing hearing, which deprives him of his right to defend himself. The lack of evidence against him and the irregularities in the judicial process require the annulment of his sentence and his immediate freedom.

Jose Isabel Morales has suffered more than 4 years of imprisonment and the loss of vision in one of his eyes. We urge you to annul his sentence immediately and leave free him. The international community continues to follow the case of Jose Isabel Morales and we hope to soon hear of the resolution of his case and his freedom.

Monday, August 12, 2013

La Voz de los de Abajo condemns the murder of CNTC member Felix Corea in Progreso, Yoro on August 10, 2013. We hold equally responsible the Honduran government including the defacto president Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo and his ministers; the president of the congress, Juan Orlando Hernandez and the members of congress; the Honduran security forces; the AZUNOSA Company and the other big landowners as well as the individuals who physically committed the crime. Furthermore we condemn the U.S. government which continues to aid and train the Honduran military and security forces, and which directly participates in military/police actions. All these forces are responsible for the violence and for the impunity that exists for violent actions against the campesinos and campesinas.

Unfortunately this murder is not the only crime committed this month so far. The same forces are accountable for the deaths and violence against other members of the resistance and the press in Honduras.

ADCP/CNTC Land Recuperation at AZUNOSA

Felix was murdered on August 10th when a truck identified as belonging to the sugar company AZUNOSA deliberately ran him down. Felix was part of the land recuperation organized by the National Center for Rural Workers (CNTC) and the Association for Campesino Development of Progreso (ADCP) on lands occupied by AZUNOSA a multinational sugar company. Felix was leaving the recuperation when the truck, which had no license plates, ran him down. Witnesses recognized it as an AZUNOSA vehicle and they also took Felix to the local hospital but he died before he could be seen by doctors.

The La Voz de los de Abajo delegation in July met with the campesinos at AZUNOSA a week after the most recent forced eviction of the campesinos by the company’s private guards and police. At that time we saw the military and private guards patrolling on the company land together. We also met with the campesinos last September when they had also been evicted. We have a long standing solidarity relationship with the CNTC. The CNTC was founded in 1985 and has approximately 400 affiliated campesino communities across Honduras.

In the most recent eviction at AZUNOSA a number of campesinos and campesinas were arrested and at this time the General Secretary of the Progreso Regional CNTC, Magdalena Morales is under house arrest related to the land recuperation and faces court proceedings on September 21. She reported to Radio Progreso a week ago that the campesinos and campesinas were being followed by trucks with no license plates and heavily tinted windows and were being harassed constantly. The Sula Valley contains vast land holdings by Honduran and international companies who control sugar and corn production and processing.

Besides AZUNOSA there is a land conflict with CAHSA (a Honduran sugar company) in which campesinos organized in the Campesino Movement of San Miguel (MOCSAM) have been attacked and suffered deaths and also has a large number of members under prosecution in the court system. These companies occupy more and than is legally allowable and therefore the excess land should be eligible for distribution to the campesinos.

Information on the attack from Greg McCain, Adrienne Pine at QUOTHA, and the Convergencia Refundacional(the Refoundational Space).

Assassination and Attacks on Resistance Youth Leaders

On August 6th a student leader and resistance member from the National Autonomous University of Honduras in San Pedro Sula, Lennin Dubon was assassinated in that city. Two days later on August 8th the Political Organization Los Necios reported that the General Secretary of the LIBRE Youth, Darwin Barahona was kidnapped by armed men who waved their weapons in his face and threatened another youth leader who was with him. Barahona was released later. Young people and students have been the target of much police and military violence and paramilitary threats.

Information from Los Necios and LIBRE Youth

LGBT Activist and LIBRE Candidate Assaulted

The LGBT organization APUVIMEH published a denunciation on August 9th that Arely Victoria Gómez Cruz a well known transgender activist and member of the resistance was attacked in Tegucigalpa after leaving an event sponsored by the government’s Secretariat for Justice and Human Rights. Victoria was a pre-candidate in the LIBRE party primaries although she did not win a slot on the final slate of candidates. Apuvimeh reported that Victoria was robbed of her belongings including her shoes, and jewelry and that it was clearly a crime motivated by her sexual identity. It was not reported if it is known whether it was also motivated by her political activism. Other members of the community have been threatened, attacked and even murdered including resistance activists Walter Troches and Erik Martinez Avila.

African Palm Conference: Letters of Protest

On August 6th, the RSPO (Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil) in conjunction with the Honduran Government, the Honduran Palm Producers Association and supported by the World Wildlife Fund, SOLIDARIDAD, ProForest and other NGOs held their 4th Latin American Conference. One of the biggest backers of the conference is big land owner Miguel Facussé. Honduran and solidarity organizations including Rights Action and La Voz de los de Abajo expressed their concern to the NGOs and protested their support for the conference (see La Voz’s letter below). Campesino organizations in Honduras represented by the Plataforma Agraria of Aguan issued statements noting that the small campesino producers were forced to attend the conference because they cannot get their productis certified without participating, but that they consider the conference and the RSPO project to be another method by which the big land oligarchs are grabbing more land and power and that furthermore they recognize the problem of a lack of incentives for production of food crops and the problem of a concentration of production of mono-cultivations such as palm and demand an agrarian policy that addresses those problems. Here is a link to an article by John Perry in the London Review of Bookshttp://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/08/13/john-perry/enjoy-your-nutella/

We are writing to you regarding your organization’s involvement in the 4th International Palm Oil conference being held by RSPO in Honduras on August 6, 2013. We have become aware of this conference only in the last few days. We urge you to withdraw from this event due to the human rights crises in Honduras since the military coup on June 28, 2009, which is most intense in the palm growing region of the country.

The region with the highest rates of violent repression in Honduras is the Aguan region. Over 100 campesinos have been killed since 2009. Small communities have been forcibly evicted from their land and their homes and crops burned to the ground. This situation is well documented and tied directly to the African palm production interests of Honduras’ largest land-owners including Miguel Facussé, owner of the Dinant Company which is one of the sponsors of the conference.

Mr. Facussé, a prominent supporter of the 2009 military coup, controls 22, 000 acres of land.

Our organization has traveled to Honduras many times as human rights observers and documentarians of the situation in the country. We have interviewed numerous survivors of the violence in the Aguan and the families of many of the murder victims, as well as human rights defenders in the country. Everyone tells us the same thing - that the ongoing impunity for perpetrators of human rights violence is increasing the violence.

It is both urgent and imperative that international organizations such as yours re-evaluate your work in Honduras, and stop endorsing, even indirectly, those who under the slogan of “green, sustainable” development, are building their empires on the bodies of the smallest producers and landless poor.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

INTERNATIONAL DENUNCIATION OF THE CRIMINALIZATION OF
COPINH AND THE CONTINUAL REPRESSION AGAINST RÍO BLANCO

Human Rights
observers declare: To halt the bloodshed, stop the financing of the Honduran
army and police

La Voz
de los de Abajo, an international human rights organization that has been
accompanying Latin American social movements for more than 14 years, once again
denounces before the international community and the Honduran authorities the
persistent harassment, repression and criminalization against the indigenous
community of Rio Blanco and the indigenous organization with which it is
affiliated, the Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of
Honduras (COPINH). We repudiate with indignation the indictment made against
indigenous members of COPINH for their struggle in defense of the Gualcarque
River, the community of Río Blanco and the cultural heritage of the Lenca people
in the face of the threat from the transnational hydroelectric project Agua Zarca.
This legal action is even more cynical because it comes a week after the people
who should be facing legal charges – the soldiers and officials of the Honduran
army who are openly collaborating with the companies that want to build the dam
– shot down an unarmed indigenous person in cold blood.

Tomás García, murdered by the Honduran army during a
peaceful protest against the Agua Zarca dam project

In July
we had already expressed our worry about a possible bloodbath if the Honduran
government didn’t immediately stop the militarization of the area and the
collaboration between the military, police, the hydroelectric companies and
their private guards. Exactly as we warned, one week later there were two
people dead, one of whom was Tomás García, the aforementioned indigenous man
who was killed by a soldier from the army during a peaceful protest. We hold
the Honduran government responsible for this killing and once again call for an
end to these crimes against humanity against the Lenca indigenous people. These
acts are yet another reason why we are pressuring the U.S. congress to cut off
aide to the Honduran military and police.

The Lenca
indigenous community of Río Blanco through its Indigenous Council has made
clear on many occasions its clear and firm opposition to the Agua Zarca
hydroelectric project. Many times they have expressed that they do not want to
see their territory flooded, destroying natural resources of extreme cultural
and spiritual importance to the Lenca people. In the face of the initiation of
the project by the Honduran company DESA and the transnational Chinese company SINOHYDRO
in clear violation of the rights of indigenous communities as laid out in
article 169 of the United Nations International Labor Organization, the
community decided to defend their rights to their land and resources with an
occupation of over 100 days of one of the access roads to the site along the Gualcarque
River where the companies want to put the dam.

We
visited the community for two days during the month of July and we have
interviewed community members, military, police and representatives of the
hydroelectric companies during and after that visit. Our investigations have led
us to several conclusions based on clear evidence:

·Without a doubt there is close collaboration between the police,
the army the private security and the DESA and SINOHYDRO companies. The
military and police advise the private security, sleep and eat in the
facilities of the companies and use their vehicles.

·There is no concrete evidence for the accusations made against
the Río Blanco community and other members of COPINH besides the statements of
people with a direct interest in the building of the dam and/or the
justification for the presence of the police and army.

·There is an abundance of evidence and documentation of the
abuses against the community. Nobody denies that Tomás García was killed by
bullets from the army even though he himself was not carrying a firearm. The
army does deny the accusations by kids and elders of Río Blanco who say they
have had weapons put in their faces and receive constant threats but there are
hundreds of members of the community who have been witness to this behavior.

·The speeches of the COPINH coordinators and other members of the
Río Blanco community have always been calls to peaceful and non-violent action
to defend the Gualcarque river for environmental, cultural and spiritual
reasons. Our delegation saw with our own eyes one of the assemblies in which
the same people now facing political charges conducted a democratic and
peaceful meeting, never inciting anybody to violence and on the contrary always
emphasizing their strong opposition to violence.

·The authorities have never investigated the possible involvement
of third parties interested in the Gualcarque River such as Freddy Nasser, Miguel
Facussé and others with interests in the area.

·The criminalization of the struggle of the people of Río Blanco and
other members of COPINH is clearly political in nature and intended to stop
their struggle and wipe out their organization. The fact that the same authorities
who recently killed in cold blood are now pressing charges against their victims
is cynical, nefarious and reprehensible.

Our organization will work with all
of our allies from the Honduras Solidarity Network in the United States and
will be in communication with congressmen, representatives from the United
Nations and other human rights organizations to spread the truth about what is
happening in Río Blanco and demand:

·That those responsible for the
human rights violations be investigated, charged and punished

·An end to the criminalization of
social movements and the political legal attack against COPINH

·Stop economic support for the
Honduran army and police until there is respect for human rights

Get Email Updates - Reciba noticias por correo electrónico

News Sources / Fuentes de Noticias

Radio Progreso has radio updates (Spanish only) directly from the from the front-lines of the resistance in Honduras.

Une TV is one of the only independent national TV stations in Honduras

Rights Action has been doing good reporting and commentary as events unfold and has people on the ground monitoring the situation. They are also a reliable vehicle through which to get money to the organizations fighting for the restoration of democracy in Honduras.

Defensores en línea is the best (Spanish-only) online source for regularly updated information on the violation of human rights in Honduras.

Spanish - website of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras about the struggle of the Garifuna people and other resistance and environmental struggles.

School of the Americas Watch has good background information on the coup-plotters training at the Georgia-based School of the Americas / (also known as the School of Assasins) as well as news updates on the coup and a call to action.